alex mercer- Fallout
by Luxordz
Summary: a crossover between Prototype 1 and Fallout 3. A lot of references and terminology involve things that happened in either the Prototype or Fallout universes, If you don't feel like playing the games (which I highly recommend) you can consult the wikis on either subject.
1. Chapter 1

just some quick notes: Prototype 2's story line has been adapted by me so that mercer killed Heller however the white-light infected turned on him, The Lone Wanderer doesn't exist and some elements of Resident Evil (mostly characters) have been added. I do not own these characters or the worlds that they come from, they belong to their creators respectively, If you find anything wrong (this being my first story) please notify me comments and reviews are also welcome, I will be attempting to update frequently however I have no clue when Ill continue. Now that all that is out of the way, please enjoy.

Prologue:

My name is Alex Mercer, in the year 2008 I released the virus, Blacklight, at Penn Station in Manhattan. I myself was infected and consumed by the virus. Soon after the initial infection the military divisions of Blackwatch and Gentek attempted to contain both me and the virus by causing a total blackout for the entirety of Manhattan nobody gets in or out, all the media was told was the standard half-truths that the military was famous for "_there has been a biological terrorist attack on Manhattan we are doing our best to…"_ the only flaw in their design was that I didn't want to escape… well not until around the year 2061. I was hunting down some of the military search and destroy squads to find out about some of the events of the outside world. The first three soldier teams didn't know much of anything that I didn't already know. However, a member of the fourth squad was a scientist that worked for something called Vault-tec. After analyzing his memories and consuming a few more scientists also associated with this company, I had come to the conclusion that this company was building "vaults" Preparing for the scenario of a large scale nuclear strike against the USA.

About 3 years after that (2065), monitoring the outside world's news I decided that nuclear war was inevitable I needed to do two things one, I'd need to find the exact location of a vault and two, I'd need to escape Manhattan; The military hadn't been sending as many men lately and the only other things in the city were mutants and zombies and too few at that. Manhattan was stagnant and I needed some fresh meat. After observing their operations for 2 more years (2067) I realized just how far they let the operation fall. They were sending in every military reject they had, giving them a gun and saying "kill everything you find other than military units." Some of them even started a gang which was quickly obliterated by me.

The bridges into the city had been destroyed long ago so the only real way to escape was to either swim or to hijack a helicopter using the highest commanding officer in the area as a disguise. I decided that the second option was my best bet at exiting the area undetected I began my search, not an hour later and I had discovered his location; he was the standard ego maniac type of person that had settled at the top floor of the highest building in Manhattan that was mostly undestroyed, 70 Pine Street, he was located on the 54th floor since the topmost floors were destroyed quite a while ago. He was guarded by 10 military personnel.

I decided to take the blunt approach over the stealthy one as it was faster and I was ready to get out of the ruins once called Manhattan. I morphed my arm into my blade and started sprinting up the side of the wall. I dove through the top window of the building with ease landing directly on one of the guards. One cleave of my arm-blade and five of them were cut in half, another cleave and the other four that were still standing got sliced in two, I simply smashed the first guard's skull with my foot. I walked over to the commander sitting at the desk. Almost, as if he had prepared a speech, he begged for his life. I rewarded him by simply taking his head off in one blow and consuming him, I next set out to find a helicopter. There was one not too far away, it was somewhat damaged but it was able to fly.

I switched myself into the form of the commander I had just consumed and called up the main guard post on the other side of the river, the conversation went something like this: guard: "hey Carter, what do you need?" Me: (acting breathless) "Mercer…Mercer attacked my men, I dove out the window and used the emergency parachute to get to safety I used a nearby damaged heli to get out of his reach, he nearly caught me but I gained too much altitude for him to reach, I need an emergency clearance to get some more men." Guard: "Please transmit clearance code and we'll set things up over here…" Me: "I'll transmit the clearance code just make sure I have a missile free path" guard: "roger that, please transmit last known location of mercer as well." Me: (types in clearance code from the guy's memory and transmits coordinates to 70 pine street) "there you go now can I get a clear path?" guard: "yes sir." I made it to the other side of the river and landed. As I came in I noticed a large military presence, it appeared as if the military had indeed contemplated my escape and had established a large fallback presence.

Scientists with 16 Blackwatch soldiers carrying rocket launchers (not counting the 10 snipers in the surrounding buildings) were there to meet me, I sensed a trap. I had just gotten out of the helicopter when the lead scientist walked up to me. "Welcome back Mr. Carter, we weren't expecting you to drop in so suddenly…" the scientist went on with what was an obviously practiced speech. Something was wrong though, all of the soldiers had guns that would obliterate any normal human, and even the scientists had major fire power. This was one of the most obvious traps I'd ever seen, so I simply cut him off by saying "Nice trap you've set up here, expecting someone?" He simply smiled "yes, yes we are, I believe you know Mercer by now, how he can run at over 200 mph, create weapons of his own body, and…" he paused "…shift into any identity he wants" at this he pulled out his magnum pistol and blew my head off. I decided my cover was blown so I simply changed back into myself and changed one arm into a sword and sliced the guy in half all within 3 seconds.

The other soldiers and scientists immediately opened fire, 16 rockets, 10 sniper rounds and whatever weapons the scientists had, hit me all at once. The impact knocked me off my feet, which was fine because as I hit the ground I sent spikes from my back straight at the soldiers; 15 of them were speared on the ebony black spikes, dead. The one that was still alive along with the scientists kept firing, same with the snipers. I turned my other arm into my long ranged whip-like weapon that I took to calling whipfist. And shot it at the soldier that was currently reloading his rocket launcher, it went straight through his chest. I retracted my arm, he came with it. As soon as he was close enough I used my blade to cut his head clean off and absorbed the rest of the body. Over the years I was trapped on Manhattan I kept gradually expanding my biomass capacity so I had years' worth of flesh just waiting to be turned into a weapon or armor by me however fresh DNA is always good. The others kept firing and reloading as they needed, big mistake, now they were starting to piss me off.

It would have been simple to kill them but I decided they were much too stupid to get off that easily, consuming Heller years before I had gained his powers however I hadn't used much of the "bio-bomb" as he had called it. I thought that now would be as good a time as any to test that little power out, I was next to one of the scientists in a flash, stabbed his neck, injected the virus into his bloodstream and stepped back. The fireworks that followed were pretty impressive; he bent over holding his head and screaming; one of the other scientists ran over and tried to drag him away. The scientist stopped screaming threw his hands out and sent out tendrils similar to my own but smaller and fewer. The new tendrils stabbed 3 scientists and drew them in, then exploded killing all of them, I smiled to myself, which is something I rarely do but that was defiantly worth smiling for.

I didn't have much time to savor the moment as one of the sniper bullets took half of my newly reformed face off, it didn't hurt of course but it was getting extremely annoying to regenerate my form again and again. Then I saw it, the reason these scientists and soldiers had been firing instead of running; nukes, two of them about 45 seconds till they hit. Since at the time I had no clue how radiation would affect my cellular structure I booked it, I was over the 25 foot high barrier wall in 3 seconds flat and sprinting at about 300 mph. the world blurred around me, the ground exploded with each step I took I caught snap shots of surprised people on the sidewalk and in cars, they'd all be dead soon though. I counted the seconds as I sprinted, 14…15…16… I knew the distance wouldn't be enough as I was guessing at least a megaton of force was being dropped on the Manhattan area 34…35…36… BOOM! The blast had come sooner than I had anticipated; I kept running for another 4 seconds before I felt the massive shockwave slam into me, the force was odd though, much too strong to be an atomic bomb, even a hydrogen bomb wouldn't have the degree of force that this new bomb had.

I rode the shockwave for at least a mile before I realized I couldn't do much to fight it; I spun out of control and what glimpses I got of Manhattan didn't look good; some gigantic bluish-white ball of energy was rapidly growing in place of what used to be New York and Manhattan Island. I also saw cars, bodies and parts of buildings carried along with me, caught in the enormous release of energy that these new bombs carried. I flew for at least another minute, everyone with me was dead, dying, or unconscious, literally being a virus, I was always conscious whether I liked it or not. When the wave started dissipating the buildings were the first to start falling out of the sky, then cars and finally the bodies. Slowing down I could finally get a look at the ground… or water as the case was at the moment however the debris of the explosion, me included were heading for a beach and some land. Calculating the trajectory of the launch I figured it was somewhere near Union Beach which meant that in about 1 minute the explosive force had carried everything over 18 miles, that was one hell of a bomb if that was just the shockwave. The good thing was that they would most likely think I was disintegrated or atomized or whatever those bombs were designed to do in the nexus of the explosion, which helped with my plan to sneak into vault 101 undetected.

Immediately after I recovered from the bomb's blast I went to a TV display store sure enough there was news on all of them, the newscaster was saying that terrorists in the Middle East had launched two unknown nuclear weapons on New York City, and that New York had been wiped off the map and that the city and its surrounding areas were considered to be a fallout zone. To counter this devastation the US had immediately declared nuclear war on Iraq and launched a single nuclear missile at their capital, heh, Blackwatch had been smart; it wasn't too hard to figure out that they had a couple nuclear missiles stored and ready to launch remotely from there playing off of the fear from years before that Iraq had nuclear weapons and were ready to use them at any given time. The newscaster said that if any other nuclear weapons were launched we would have on average, 30 minutes to get to our designated 'vaults'. The nukes didn't fall that day; I never actually found out why but I didn't really care. I found someone living; single, in a house on the outskirts of Washington DC with a pass into vault 101 he was only about 12 miles from the vault whose construction was set to be completed in 2075.

I consumed the man and took over his life. His office job wasn't 'mentally stimulating' enough, so I quit his job and became one of the best hitmen in history, assassinating political and personal targets with ease. Nobody knew my name or anything about me they just paid well, money didn't really matter to me but being a hitman was exceptionally fun, I was even hired to kill the president at one point, a job which of course I executed with extreme precision. This went on until October 23, 2077 I was just finishing up a contract and getting paid by the client when someone ran in the door "sir" the man said "nuclear war is upon us we have to leave NOW!" he turned back to me but I was already gone I was at the vault in about 12 minutes. They were getting ready to seal it when I arrived, "Wait" I yelled and was able to make it inside, and they sealed the door behind me, the nukes fell on DC exactly 7 minutes and 36 seconds after the doors were closed.

I had to simulate aging in order to avoid suspicion and eventually had to consume someone else around the year 2136, and again around 2238. I'm waiting for a chance to get out now, no sense staying here when the radiation should be quite dissipated or gone entirely from the surface no matter what the current "overseer" says, I've been starved of a good meal for over 150 years and I'm starting to feel neglected. The date is 2272; this is the date the vault will be opened. The guards were always way too easy to sneak past, this time being no different as I simply changed my form to their uniform; nobody ever even glanced my way. They did pay some attention to when I activated the mechanism to open the vault; however I was already gone with the door just about sealed behind me. I faced the boarded wooden entrance to the tunnel that led down to the vault, without any hesitation, stepping forward into the unknown. The desert beyond the door was completely lifeless, the only thing that confirmed that I was in what used to be DC was the street sign just a few feet in front of me and the stretch of a highway on two pillars of concrete to the east that had long-since deteriorated.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1- Megaton

Walking straight down the hill that the entrance to the vault now inhabited, I came to a green-brown puddle, clearly irradiated, against my better judgment I placed my hand in the puddle for about three seconds, nothing happened. I did a self- diagnosis of the exposed hand and found no anomalous behavior with the directly affected cells or the surrounding ones which meant I could handle at least minor or mild radiation without any adverse effects. With that question taken care of I continued walking; as I did I shifted back to my main form of mercer in place of the jacket though I changed it to a duster with the same dragon pattern on the back of it. I allowed the hood to stay, I liked it however I fused it to the duster so it would look natural, both the coat and hood were midnight black. I continued walking to find a large dome like structure without a roof that looked like it was made of scrap metal; a robot was outside, one of those protectron robots developed about 7 years before the war. I decided that the only way to get some much needed information was to speak to somebody living; this place seemed to be inhabited at least. On my way into the settlement I passed a beggar, he saw me and asked "water, please do you have any water?" I looked at him for a second and responded with "why? Aren't there any lakes or other water sources around?" "The only free water sources around are the lakes, and those are long-since irradiated." I started walking towards the settlement again; the man grabbed my leg "please if you get any I'd be really…" "Do you want to keep that hand?" I asked. He immediately shrank back away from me.

I continued up to what seemed to be the main gate. The protectotron turned to me and asked "what is yoururururururur businessssss in megaaaaaatoooooo…..." something fizzled and exploded inside the robot. A voice from up above, human this time said "Damn, did that thing break again?" he had a southern accent, making him somewhat hard to understand. "So stranger, what's your business in megaton?" "I assume that megaton is this town's name then?" I replied. "Yep that's right, named after the semi-dormant nuke in the center of town, heh been tryin to find someone with the know-how to disarm that thing." "You built a town around an un-exploded nuclear weapon?" "Of course" he remarked sarcastically, "no we didn't actually find out that the nuke was still explode-able until the town was already built and by then nobody wanted to move" "well can I come in? I need some information on the area…" "Well if you want info drop by Moriarty's saloon, you'll see the sign as soon as you walk in, just across town, I'll open the gate for ya" The gates slowly swung open as an airplane turbine above me whirred to life.

As soon as I was inside the gates re-sealed themselves locking out any undesirable people as there were bound to be raiders and bandits in this world. Sure enough Moriarty's was directly across town except it was about 30 feet in the air seemingly built out of the side of the crater that the town was built around; there was an old school WW2 era nuclear bomb directly in the center of it. I puzzled at this for a second, but figuring it really didn't matter what era the bomb was from so long as it didn't kill me while I was here. I continued walking seeing a ramp that evidently led to the 'upper floor' of the town, looking around it seemed there wasn't one thing not made out of scrap metal except for small neon signs that announced each building's trade. The saloon had the largest sign by far when compared to the rest of town, however it wasn't dark so I had no clue if the neon worked or not. I walked into the saloon, it looked as though there was no cleaning service anymore or people just didn't care, the floors were grimy, the walls were rusted, and everything smelled of stale alcohol and food. I resolved to find the owner and get the information I needed as soon as possible, luckily I didn't have to look very far, there was a guy reading a newspaper behind the counter I assumed he either was the owner or he worked here.

I sat down and said "where's the owner?" after a second he replied in a gruff scratched up voice "I dunno, go look upstairs or in back or something, hell, he might be takin' a day off for all I care." "okay" I replied "how about you think of where the most likely place he'd be right now and I think of not ripping your head off" "look buddy I might be a Moriarty's servant but that doesn't mean I keep track of him and I've heard a lot worse than that so why don't you…" he put down the magazine "just get out of here before…" In one fluid motion I was over the counter knee at his, or it's, thought pinning it down with just enough pressure so it couldn't attempt to get up without breaking a rib. The creature I was now restraining looked like a blacklight infected zombie, no hair, decaying skin, dead eyes, however this one could talk, maybe something to do with radiation effects or something. The fact that it was talking kept it alive. "Holy shit man, I'm sorry okay? He's probably in the …" I cut it off by pressing my knee down ever so slightly on its neck cutting off its air supply for just an instant. "So" I started "how'd you escape Manhattan… better yet, why aren't you trying to kill me?" he was silent for a second and said "what's a… man-hat?" "Don't bullshit me I escaped too so tell me how and don't play the 'I dunno' act with me, let's go back to my second question, why aren't you trying to kill me?" "look man I don't know who you are or what you…" _BANG._

I turned towards the door and towards the unmistakable sound of a revolver. "What's going on here? You, get off of the ghoul and put your hands behind your head." A guy wearing a badge and a duster similar to my own except brown in color, an assault rifle on his back and a revolver pointed at me. I pulled the 'ghoul' up with me holding him by the collar of his ragged and torn outfit. "You realize that this thing is infected by the blacklight virus don't you?" I said pointing at it. The man responded, saying "The only thing that ghoul has been exposed to is a large dose of radiation just like the others scattered around the Capitol Wasteland" I stared him down for a good thirty seconds the other patrons of the saloon frozen in place as if they thought that if they moved they'd spark a fight. He cocked the revolver "I won't ask you again." I dropped the creature which scurried away into a back room and disappeared from view. "Good now put your hands behind your head and get down on your knees, you're going to the cells." This guy was too sure of himself for his own good; he was also starting to get on my nerves.

I spread my arms and called out "shoot me then because I'm not going with you." "I won't shoot an unarmed man" he replied "draw your gun" heh, a code of honor too this guy needed some humility if anything else. "I don't have one, nor do I need one to kill you" I started walking towards the door that was directly behind this man. "Stop right there, or I will kill you." I decided to continue walking right at the door. He pulled the trigger. _BANG._ The round tore through my shoulder, I simply continued walking. _BANG. BANG. BANG._ Two to my left knee and one to my right, I simply smiled and said "is that all? I was expecting more, especially from you with your 'amazing' guns" The man at the door, the sheriff was what I was starting to think, said "this bastard is using some kind of body armor, everyone shoot, find a weak point." The noise level in the room immediately quadrupled with the signature _BANG_ of the revolver to the _clat clat clat_ of assault rifle fire there might have even been a shotgun somewhere in there.

As everyone stopped to reload I fell over, I wasn't here for glory, but since my stealthy approach had failed I wanted to make somewhat of an impression that would be spread throughout this 'Capitol Wasteland' that I was now in. The sheriff started into some stupid victory speech. "Good, very good, see people we have just as good of a defense as Rivet City…" "Excuse me" I said as I reformed into a standing position. "Can we skip the little speech sheriff?" I morphed my arm into a blade "I'd like to get out of this rundown little town; you said something about Rivet City? Where is it exactly?" "Who the… what the hell are you?" the fear in his eyes was delightful. "Just answer my question" I put the tip of my blade to his neck "or do you not like your head attached to the rest of your body?" "I-I-I-it's to the um… southeast at the uh… coastline" All the while I stared at him and he stared at his reflection in the metal part of the blade. "Can I um… please go now?" "Sure" I replied and lowered the blade morphing it back into a human arm as I exited the bar pushing the sheriff out of the way.

I didn't really need to go back to the main gate; however the sniper that let me in seemed knowledgeable so I wondered if he knew anything about this 'Rivet City' or other locations that might interest me. I jumped 30 feet into the air and silently landed behind the sniper. "So" I began, he turned around had his rifle in my face in an instant, which was sort of what I expected. "What do you know about Rivet City?" "Oh, it's you" he replied putting his gun down "Rivet City, eh? Can't say I know much about the actual city as I haven't ever been there but it's supposed to be the best fortified settlement in the entire Capitol Wasteland so a lot of people attempt to make the trek across the wasteland to reach it, not a lot of them make it through with all the super muties, deathclaws, guais, and such. The DC ruins are probably the deadliest, Rivet City being directly on the other side of them." "Hmm I assume that if I attempt the walk I'll find out what exactly all of those are?" I asked. "Defiantly, so watch your back" "thanks, oh and can you tell your sheriff that I didn't mean to cause too much trouble for him and that he and his citizens should probably just forget I was ever here" I said as I stepped to the rail. "Oh, hey one question for you" he said "how did you get up here?" "Heh" I smiled "same way I'm getting down" I said as I jumped up and away from him landing in the dust about 30 feet away. I didn't have to look back to know he was dumbfounded, my goal with had been to get some information and remain in the shadows, obviously that had failed, I had only gotten the name of a single settlement but it seemed that Rivet City was one of the largest and most popular settlements in this area so I decided to head for it.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2- People these days…

I decided to run but I limited myself to about 35 miles per hour to avoid missing any detail of this destroyed environment I was now in, anything that I didn't know would have been helpful at this point. After about 20 minutes of this slow running I came across something that made me stop, I saw 3 people with assorted weapons firing at some kind of mutant bear-like creature; I decided to watch and see what the capabilities of the creature were along with the people it was fighting. The humans looked to be winning the fight as they had the creature surrounded; it looked confused as to which one to go after. The humans had a man dual wielding two pistols, a woman with some kind of assault rifle however it didn't seem to be automatic it was also silenced, there was also someone in a full facemask helmet with a largish pistol. After taking 25 bullets, some to the head, I had decided that the creature had some form of tough skin or some kind of regeneration mutation; it also seemed less confused and more pissed off with every bullet. After about 40 shots it charged the person directly in front of it, which happened to be the one with the mask, she was bowled over the helmet was knocked off. It was a woman; looking closer as the bear charged past her I thought she looked familiar almost like… she stood up and spit out blood; I saw her face and froze, it was my sister Dana. It made no sense how she was alive but I sprinted at the bear without a second thought. It turned back to her however by the time that it was looking at her again I had punched through its neck, ripped its head off, and absorbed it. If this had been the first year of my life as the backlight virus I probably would have gotten some mutation out of absorbing the creature but I had unlocked my shape-shifting abilities to the point where I could turn into whoever and whatever I wanted just by thinking of it and having enough bio-mass in reserve to complete the transformation there was a cost however, anything that I now changed actually depleted a very small amount of biomass to complete the transition, the amount was insignificant unless I changed multiple times per minute.

I turned to the trio of people looking in disbelief at what had just happened, all except one. "Alex?" Dana whispered with no small measure of fear, slowly walking toward me. I stood there for a second, I had so many questions for her. I felt that the most important was simply: "how are you alive?" She stopped walking toward me "you were killed in the white-light incident; I killed your evolved form in fact…" I trailed off still in disbelief that I was seeing what I was seeing. She was silent for a while and then she started, "Alex we need to talk, but first there's a more pressing matter to attend to… I'm taking these people to rivet city, if you would help us get there I'll tell you everything that's happened since I disappeared." I thought for a second, it couldn't be that hard to get to rivet city, not with my abilities at least. "By the way, who are your friends?" She indicated a man holding two 9mm pistols. "This is Leon Kennedy and this, she indicated a woman whom I had just realized was holding a crossbow which caught me off guard, is Ada Wong." The woman took out the bolt readied in her crossbow and pushed a button which collapsed the whole thing into a much more carry-able form, the man however continued to point his pistols at me. "Who are you?" he barked. "You really think you can kill me with those?" He tightened his grip on the pistols, "Depends if you attack first…" he said, "Leon, I think that if this man wanted us dead he'd have killed us by now, I doubt he's human after all he did just crush a yao-guai's skull and then disintegrated the rest of it." The man put his guns into the holsters at his sides. "Fine, but if he turns out to be hostile…" he began, however Ada cut in. "then we'd be dead" "ok then, who are you?" Leon asked. "Alex Mercer, Dana's my sister and that's all you need to know, so don't press the subject."

Leon then turned and proceeded to the area where the corpse had been and begun to scavenge through the remains of the body, Ada standing behind him. He pulled some steel spike-like objects out of the dust that had recently been a corpse, wiped them off, and gave them to her. They walked back to Dana and I, Ada was putting each one Leon had found into her backpack, she sighed. "Damn, another 3 lost, well shall we continue?" "Yes, I'll get the map" Dana said, and reached into her backpack and pulled out a slightly destroyed map and a compass, after a second she began walking to the left. Ada and Leon followed one to the left and one to the right; I stood behind them so instead of a triangle the formation was of a diamond.

After about 15 minutes I walked up to the woman, "You use a crossbow?" I asked "obviously" she responded. "Tell me about it, I would think it would be less effective than a gun." "Well I'll make you a deal" she started "you tell me about yourself and I'll tell you about myself, I especially want to know how you can obliterate a Yao-Guai with one punch." "How about no" "well you're no fun then." She sped up slightly; she was teasing me, she knew that she'd just made herself even more mysterious. "Ok fine" I said "if you want to trade for something how about you tell me why you use a crossbow and I'll give you some bolts for it." "Show them to me first then." Damn she was smart. "First I need one of your regular bolts." She obliged, pulling one out of her bag, I took it and stabbed it directly into my shoulder. She had a mildly shocked look on her face as my form copied the dimensions of the bolt her face turned into a quizzical expression when I took it out again. "What was…" I held up my hand, concentrating on the form of the bolt and projected the shape onto my shoulder and down my arm bringing it to focus in my left hand thinking of making it out of steel with a bio-bombing tip. I pulled the new bolt out of my hand and gave it to her; she took it and began examining it. "Don't shoot that unless you want to obliterate your target" I told her "Why, what's so special about this?" she asked as she took it. An obvious question, which I answered "Because I infused it with a small amount of virus which will infect the thing you shoot, after a few seconds it begins to reject its own cells and self-destruct, I don't..." "So you're infused with the virus then?" She jumped back and pointed her crossbow at me which automatically unfolded, Leon had both pistols out and pointed at me "what strain, T?, C?, G?, or a new one" "what?" I responded as the woman yelled "Down" and threw an object at me.

Both Ada and Leon crouched away from the projectile, Leon grabbing Dana who was yelling "wait" which was drowned out by the loud Boom followed immediately by a bluish flash of blinding light. Damn it she was prepared for a fight all right, instinctively I morphed one arm into a blade and the other into a claw, since my eyes and ears fed information directly into my cellular structure that was essentially my brain my whole form was blind and deaf. The effects of the flashbang would clear faster than a normal human's but that was only for the hearing, my sight would take longer to regenerate. I felt something enter my neck and some fluid injected immediately my cells began to burn and die around the injection, I quickly targeted the spread of the solution and killed the cells transporting it and disconnected them from the rest of my body. My audial sense had partially returned "Did you get him?" Leon's voice "you know I never miss, that should kill any of the strains that exist so far." The voice belonging to Ada.

"Well, evidentially you don't have my strain" I stood up "now I'm not going to kill you until my vision clears so you've got about 3 minutes to tell me why I should let you continue to exist or you could run, but leave Dana here." "How…" Leon's voice sounding defeated "our entire vault's work was for nothing?" "That..." began Ada "or he's not talking about any virus we know of" "heard of Blacklight?" I asked "no" "then you couldn't have developed the antivirus for it could you." "I guess not…" Ada finally said "still burnt like hell though… I at least admire your courage or stupidity for trying to attack me, it was refreshing, but if you do it again I will kill you without hesitation." "It's a deal" she said coyly. "Very well, let's continue" I said, my vision clearing enough to see where I was going. Leon sighed and put his pistols away, Dana walked to me "I should probably explain a little about them, shouldn't I…?" "Information would be nice, like why they would attack me and what the viruses they were talking about were" I said. "Where to start…" she began "Ok so first they aren't just some mercenaries I found, we were all in the same vault together, the whole vault was designed to research the reason that the world was nuked. It was actually a virus, one that started in Africa but spread so quickly that about 10% or the entire population of Africa was infected within the day. The problem with containment was that it turned the infected into creatures that possessed immense size and strength, we called them J'avo and we identified the virus as the C-virus, after that…" "Wait" I stopped her "this was all before the war right?" "Yes, don't interrupt me or I won't tell you the rest" she teased "fine" I complied.

"So after we had identified that the cause was indeed from a virus we called in the BSAA, who were an elite group of anti-biological agents. They were able to suppress the infection, however it was learned too late that it wasn't just a new virus it was a biological attack on the world. The people responsible for the virus attack then used an experimental strain known as the G-virus which was injected into a single individual in a lab environment, however they discovered that the infection was unable to spread from that individual so they also infected it with the T-virus giving it ultra-lethality as it adapted to both viruses, Making it virtually immortal and if it so much as touched a person they turned into a mindless walking corpse with the ability to spread the virus to others, any questions so far?" she led off, I decided to ask one just to humor her. "Why didn't I hear about this big virus then? Did it avoid the Americas or what?" "Well," she continued "It was contained and the media was blocked from the entire continent of Africa, only being told that an extremely deadly virus was being contained within its borders. Within two days though all of Africa was infected and that's about the time that the G-virus was unleashed, spreading the virus rapidly as it broke the containment and evolved the virus within itself creating mutations of the T and C viruses and spreading to Europe, the Middle East, and Russia, since this was only the third to fourth day of the virus being active nobody was prepared for the speed of the infection. Britain, nearly overrun, launched nukes at itself to try and destroy the G-virus, seeing this China thought that the nukes were headed for them and thus sent their nukes at Britain. Russia had an alliance with Britain which caused them to nuke China and through alliances every country began launching its nukes. People in…"

"Get down" I yelled as the sniper round tore through my shoulder. I sprinted at the shooter who proceeded to take another shot at me hitting me directly in the chest; of course it didn't slow me down as I automatically healed the hole and grabbed the shooter with one hand and snapped his neck, consuming him on death. Apparently he had friends too, 4 people with sub-machine guns opened fire on me. I laughed, amused that they would attempt to shoot after I had taken two sniper shots. I dashed to one of them punched through his chest and crushed his heart in my fist, throwing his body at one of the others knocking him down. I changed my arm into my blade and sliced the next one's head off, it seemed that the last gunman had run out of ammo as the bullets stopped flying at me, I simply walked at him to which he turned and ran, I let him go. The one that had been knocked down got back up and resumed firing at me, I walked up to him just as he ran out of ammo, "that's impossible…" he began, however I cut him short by cleaving him in half and absorbing him.

I picked up the sniper rifle and the ammo that the first shooter had used. I walked back to Dana changing my arm back to normal as I went, "now, you were saying, oh and here." I said giving her the sniper and the ammo. She holstered her pistol and took the rifle "um… thanks" she said "well aside from that little disruption we should continue, as I was saying, through military alliances countries launched their nuclear warheads at their enemies which is when everyone that had access to a vault flocked to them, I was in vault 112. Since I wasn't technically registered I had to sneak in and hide never being seen by anyone, it was actually quite boring. So I'm guessing you want to know about the white-light right?" "Yes" I said "well you were only partially correct when you said you had killed my evolved form, when the white-light infected me I was quite literally split in two, the one you killed was a materialization of the blacklight I had been passively exposed to through you, I am human, except for the fact that I can't die. I'm pretty sure that I inherited your regeneration abilities, however I never need to eat, drink, or anything like that. So I came to the conclusion, which I don't particularly want to test, which was that like you, I can only die through you consuming me, but even that I'm not sure of." "Well" I began "do you still feel pain?" "Yes, well somewhat my sense of pain still exists however its diminished quite a bit" she sighed. "I don't age either, but I can't consume anything or change my form like you can. However, I can move pretty fast and use some of your movement abilities like jumping pretty high." "Interesting…" I trailed off thinking to myself.

I finally decided to ask, "Would you mind if I tested your abilities?" she thought for a second. "That would be fine" she said "but first I'd like to get to rivet city and drop these two off," she gestured behind her. "They still think I'm human and I really don't want them to think differently of me, they could be useful in the future." "Smart, now, what's their deal with viruses then?" I asked. "Well our vault, vault 112 was tasked with the study of the virus that ended the world. After generations of study they developed an antivirus to destroy the C, T, and G viruses through the use of a single injection. However the T-virus infected one of the vault dwellers he was scared and didn't tell anyone of the infection, the next day he turned into a walking corpse and before anyone could respond he killed everyone in the lab, infecting them all. It spread from the lab and was throughout the entire vault in about an hour and a half. Ada and Leon only barely managed to escape the vault and seal it again before the infected made it out, swearing to find a cure to the virus, I ran out, just barely escaping as the door was sealed." "Aren't the infected stronger? Otherwise how would only one have been able to take down a small army of soldiers and break the pre-war containment?" I asked "no," Dana responded "only the G-virus infected is genetically modified to be stronger and faster than the other infected and the C-virus infected J'avo are only stronger once they mutate, however not strong enough to move 13 tons of steel. The people in the vault were only exposed to the T-virus." I glanced back; the two were talking with each other. However I didn't catch anything they said.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3- The armored city

We continued walking for about 20 minutes in silence, not quite awkward but still uncomfortable, passing ruined buildings and structures of the old DC. Dana finally broke the silence "Were about 10 minutes from the city, be careful there are usually raiders looking to jump people in these buildings." "Heh," I muttered "they jump me and I'll return the favor." Another 6 minutes went by only accompanied by utter silence, Rivet City was nowhere in sight just an enormous tanker that had run aground on the coastline that appeared sawn in half by an unforeseen force. "So where's this city then?" I asked. She pointed to the tanker, "there it is." She answered. "That thing is cut in half and beached, how is that a city?" "Well, you'll see when we get in won't you" she said with a smile, she defiantly liked that she knew something I didn't for once. Coming closer I realized that there was a large structure made of metal on the coast, closer still I made it out to be a ramp with a bridge leading from the top of the structure to the side of the ship. There was a guard at the bottom of the ramp, "Stop." She said in a commanding tone "what is your business in Rivet City?" I stood and watched as Dana walked foreword, "We're scientists" she said "Virus study, we were coming to see if any of the scientists here could provide information to us that would be useful."

The woman guarding the ramp stood for a second, she got wide-eyed and grabbed the revolver on the desk she had been sitting at, I tensed for a fight "get up the ramp and over the bridge, NOW" she yelled and began backing towards the ramp I looked over my shoulder and saw what she was looking at, enormous green mutants, charging straight at us with various melee weapons I stopped and stood while the others ran for the ramp "Alex, come on!" Dana yelled; if she was telling me to run instead of fight she had a good reason for it. The nearest mutant's head imploded, I turned and ran at slightly faster than human speed a large boom echoed among the buildings as I realized there was a shooter with a sniper rifle at the top of the structure. Another shot, another boom, and another splat of a mutant head the rifle had to be extremely powerful to say the least. I reached the bottom of the ramp and continued up "come on, run!" shouted the sniper, reloading and taking another shot as I reached the 180 degree turn in the ramp and continued running up reaching the top as the sniper was taking his rifle off of its tripod to turn and run across the bridge.

I followed, he was pretty fast for a human and I decided to run slightly slower than he did to secure the thoughts of anyone who was watching that I was human which I was pretty sure that Dana wanted me to look like; Dana, Ada, and Leon had already made it across the bridge, Dana had her hand on a large red button. When we were 3/4ths of the way across the green mutants had just come over the ramp and onto the landing at the top; Dana hit the button. I felt a shift and movement beneath my feet as the entire bridge began rotating I picked up the sniper and shoved him over the guardrail and onto the side of the boat. A moment afterward and I jumped after him, over a distance just barely passable for a human; to make my landing seem even more human-like I landed with my upper body on the boat but my lower body hanging over the side. I smoothed my bodily traction allowing me to slide over the edge and 'save' myself by gripping the edge with my hands, a moment later and there were two people pulling at my arms and hauling me up. "Thanks" I muttered as I got to my feet "Alex, let's go" Dana said walking towards the door that lead into the main part of the ship. "Wait" it was one of the men that had pulled me up, "I have to follow you, security purposes you know…"

I was about to tell him to screw off but Dana spoke first, "we are just bodyguards for these two scientists, and we'll be going straight to meet with doctor Li so of course you could follow us or, you could make sure that those super mutants don't somehow cross that bridge and get into the city." "Ummmm… sure ma'am you can go then, just don't go causing trouble it's my ass on the line." the guard said. "Thank you" Dana said and turned to Leon and Ada "shall we continue then?" Ada said, Dana answered "yes, we should get to Li quickly, she may have some useful information about the virus" I nodded and began to follow Dana and the others into the ship via a bulkhead door built into the side of the ship. We found ourselves in a rectangular room with a spiral staircase leading up or down through the interior decks depending on where the person wanted to go, Dana took the lead and lead us through some hallways and finally through a doorway and down a small staircase into a large room with a strange metal structure in the middle, organic fruit and vegetables on a table connected to the structure.

"Doctor Li?" Ada called out, no reply. I looked to Dana wondering if she knew where this doctor was, she looked confused as well. "Should we go looking for her?" Leon suggested "how about we split up, Alex and I will have a look around here and you two go look throughout the ship. But be back in 15 minutes in case she shows up" Dana said "OK, Leon let's go" Ada agreed and they went back to the doorway that we had come in and walked through to the rest of the ship. "Ok so now what?" I asked. "Now, we wait till Li gets here then we can leave." Dana said and put her hand on her hip signaling for me to be silent because she was thinking about something, I complied and found a folding chair next to a locker, unfolded it and sat down. I didn't even offer one to Dana as I knew she would begin pacing any minute now, she began walking back and forth she was completely silent but I could almost see the gears turning in her head, what she was thinking about however remained a mystery.

Ten minutes passed no sign of anyone at all, Dana was still pacing and I continued to sit in the chair thinking of what was most important to ask Dana once we were out of this ship, I decided that first I needed to test what powers she had inherited and how much combat effectiveness she had… especially compared to me, she still probably hated me for killing Heller so many years ago along with the white-light that could make her into a challenge for me if she chose to hunt me down to kill me. I began to wonder where Ada and Leon had gone to when I remembered Ada's crossbow, I flexed my fingers and began recalling the model of the arrow in my mind, I channeled the image into my palm and let it become generated through my arm and wrist finally pushing the new form into my palm and multiplying it, pulling the five new arrows out with my other hand. "What are those?" Dana asked breaking from her pacing and staring at the five cylindrical bolts in my hand, "Ada's crossbow is an interesting weapon; she said she was running low on ammo. Before she attacked me she said she would tell me why she used it if I gave her more arrows." "Hmmm…" she muttered going back to her pacing and thinking.

After creating 25 more arrows in the same manner I heard voices coming closer I gathered all of the newly created arrows and stood up. "Huh?" Dana said noticing my change in position. "Someone's coming" I replied, looking towards a side entrance that I hadn't realized was there until just now. I examined one of my newly created bolts to avoid looking strange as they entered; I looked up to see Ada, Leon, and 3 other people in white lab coats; two females and one male enter the room "so I assume you are Dana" she said pausing to gesture to Dana "and you are Alex?" finishing her thought. "Yes, that's correct" Dana said "Well then, thank you for delivering these two; you have our utmost thanks." The doctor said "Go down to Flak 'N Shrapnel's, in the main market area and tell them that Madison sent you, and that I'll pay for any two guns of whatever variety you choose." "Thank you" Dana replied. Dana and I promptly exited the room via the door that the scientists had come through.

We began wondering around looking for whatever store that the doctor had mentioned "Dana do you really need a better gun then that sniper? I mean you can't die." "Yes, but I can get captured, remember I'm not as powerful as you and I can still feel some pain and besides a sniper is really only good for long range, and a pistol really doesn't do any good against giant mutated bears does it?" she had a point at least "Fine" I said and continued walking. We finally discovered a huge room after passing through a bulkhead evidentially the populace had turned most of the room into a marketplace with separate stalls. Dana Immediately went to the stores and began looking for guns and knowing her, clothes. I wandered around the room as Dana decided on what she should buy; I found a door that had an emergency exit sign painted above it. I opened the door and walked out to find open space right in front of my face, it seemed that the emergency exit sign had been correct because the only way to go anywhere from where I was standing was straight down 40 feet to the water.

I leaned over the edge and discovered that the enormous hole straight through the ship that I had seen before was what I was standing in now, through the amazing powers of deduction I figured that when the ship had been intact I would have been standing in a hallway. I decided to go have a look around as I knew I had about 10 minutes to waste while Dana shopped; I jumped upwards. In a matter of a few seconds I was on the top deck of the ship. I walked past about two dozen planes, a few were completely destroyed, some were partially ruined, and the remainder looked serviceable enough to fly. The scene reminded me somewhat of when I fought the Supreme Hunter on the S.S. Regan I memory I enjoyed somewhat. I found myself looking over the edge toward the rotating bridge where we had first entered the city. The large green mutants were still on the other side of the bridge, some through stones, others paced, and some stood around; there were probably about 30 to 40 down there. I noticed that none of them had guns or projectile weapons of any kind besides thrown stones and other debris. Then I saw it, an enormous green giant in the distance. I began studying its movement speed and how far away it was from the city, after some quick calculation I decided that it would reach the city in approximately 15 minutes.

I mulled over the idea of destroying it, I could use the bio-mass from that thing alone to level about 40 feet around me if the need ever arose, that, and the creature might also pose a valid challenge something that I had not come across since Heller and the white-light rogues. I decided to go for it; I stepped back and got ready by first changing from my duster into New York style street clothes and changing my face into some random person that I had consumed back in Manhattan. I changed my left arm into an old favorite of mine, the claw, and my right arm into a flexible sword-lance, to stab and slash. I took a breath and began sprinting, jumping when I reached the edge of the deck I began to glide. I broke the glide once I was directly over the large crowd of mutants plummeting back to the earth at about 50 mph I aimed my lance at the ground and slammed into the earth, my lance arm half stuck in the ground which was exactly where I wanted it. I split the tip into nine different ends and allowed them to slice under the earth toward the closest mutants, within 7 seconds of me landing a fourth of the mutants were already dead the spikes aimed directly at their heads when they popped out of the ground.

I retracted the tendrils and began melee combat by jumping 20 feet in the air and throwing my arm out in front of me aiming at a mutant with something that resembled a large sniper rifle however looked to be made out of scrap, I didn't know if these things had a leader however there were only 3 mutants with guns, which was reduced to 2 after my first attack. I aimed my lance arm at his head he wasn't moving, not even shooting as I flew towards him. My entry angle was low however and my blade was driven completely through his chest I tore my blade out and turned, two hands reached out and grabbed me from behind the mutant was still alive, that's when I noticed that the rest of the group was backing up, something was wrong. As if to confirm my suspicions the mutant holding me dropped a metal box with a red light on it, I broke from its grasp just as the bomb vest he was wearing went off, he exploded with the force of about a pound of dynamite. The blast ripped the top half of my body off and threw it like a ragdoll landing near a small group of mutants, "I want his arm" said one of them as I stayed completely still, with any luck the last mutant with a gun, and probably a bomb too would come over and I could absorb him without him exploding too quickly. "Too bad it's mine" "I want the claw" "I called that one too" "you can't do that" "it's mine" three shots in the air and everyone was silent. "I'm taking his head first the rest of you can fight after I get it."

He began walking towards me he was a big one, even for these mutants. He put his hands on either sides of my head and drove his foot into my shoulder as he pulled at the sides of my head I denied him and held my head and body together with ease. After about ten seconds of attempting to decapitate me he roared and gave one last heave and proceeded to try to drop me, I didn't let him, In fact I had fused the cells in his hands to the cells in the sides of my head and fused the cells of his foot with the cells of my shoulder "What?!" He roared as he tripped backward I twisted my head backward to face the now scared mutant "I don't think I like the attempted decapitation, I do however think that you must now die" I said as I injected my cells into his hand and tore apart his brain. I then proceeded to consume his body, all of this taking place within about 3 seconds I then stood up using the form I had assumed to attack the mutants with and called out "So… anybody else want to try and kill me?" The rest of the group simply turned and ran.

I looked over to the rails on the side of Rivet City to see a few stunned people staring at me, I turned and began running up the side of a nearby building to get a better view of my target. Arriving at the top I found that the giant mutant had begun smashing through buildings, still barreling towards its target. I figured that this thing was like a Goliath from one of the Blackwatch experiments back when Heller was still alive which meant that I could probably simply take the thing apart, piece by piece until it died, It was only about 5 minutes away from reaching Rivet City.

I sprinted and jumped across the tops of the ruined buildings easily clearing at least 25 feet between them, the giant still lumbering onward smashing through buildings as it continued toward its designated target. I was finally close enough to get a good look at the creature itself It was at least 80 feet tall with arms and legs were about the size of large pre-war trees, I morphed my arm into a large scythe-like blade as I ran Intent on slicing its legs off first to stop its movement, then moving on to the arms absorbing each body part as I went. After that I'd go for the head and absorb the rest of the body I'd learned long ago when I first fought a Goliath that if I tried to kill it and absorb it in full form my body would literally shut itself down for about 10 minutes due to over consumption in that time I could be wounded and maybe even killed, I wasn't too keen on testing either Idea though and resolved to kill and absorb the giant safely.

I was close now, maybe 90 feet away from my first target which was one of its legs I dove and angled my scythe so I could hook it around the beast's leg and use the excess speed to make a clean straight through chop, which was the plan anyway. Just as I was about to hook my target the giant stopped walking, I attempted to adjust my entry angle and was unsuccessful. I did manage to hook the leg however without the correct entry angle and the fact that the beast wasn't moving I slid around to the backside of its thigh and sped on past my scythe unhooking as I was thrown foreword by my own momentum, I did manage to spin around slightly and land on my feet behind the creature and stand up. Building up to a run again a question came to my mind, why had the giant stopped at that exact moment? This was however a passing thought as I began running again, this time however I morphed my left hand into a scythe matching my right one and went for both its ankles. Getting within what I estimated was about 30 feet of the creature and it stopped and began to turn, Its maneuverability was severely limited by its size but it still move pretty fast for how tall it was, Not fast enough however. As my blades hit their mark I ripped them foreword, straight through flesh however upon striking bone my arms stopped I was jerked back as if I had been in the middle of a slingshot. The beast roared as I was thrown back a few feet and landing on my back, "no way…" I thought to myself as I picked myself up and began to backup as the creature turned itself around to face me. I was completely stunned; my blades could cut through anything, ANYTHING! I didn't have time to ponder how I was now going to kill this creature as it balled its hands into fists and brought them above its head ready to crush me into a flat disk. I decided I could cut this thing up later and began building up a charge in my legs ready to jump as it brought its boulder sized fists down to the earth.

I jumped, not directly up but angled so I flew to the right straight towards a building changing my left arm to an old power that I had once used to destroy tanks, similar to the creature's own hand my hammerfist was made of condensed biomass allowing it to become as hard as any metal that currently existed or even more depending on how much biomass I used for the transformation. As I ricocheted off of the surface of the building I changed my right arm to my whipfist and launched it directly at a building directly on the other side of the creature. I used the spikes on the end of my whipfist like a grappling hook and caught it on a metal strut pulling myself towards it to gain velocity. The creature's fists had just made contact with the earth as I exploded off the side of the building throwing my whipfist back at the first building and hooking it, the beast began to get back up from its bent over position as I launched myself off the side of the first building. This time however I plummeted back down to the earth with my hammerfist stretched out in front of my body, I had condensed the biomass in the hammerfist to be about as tough as diamond. I aimed straight at the back of its skull, my fist made contact with the force of a large bomb. I figured that I had slightly overestimated the strength I'd need to kill the beast as my fist smashed through the back of its skull and traveling straight through the middle of its brain and through the other side of its head.

I slammed into the ground after emerging from the creature's face only slightly slowed down from going through two of its skull plates. I looked up at the creature's head that was falling towards me and dodge rolled out of the way before it hit the ground, I had to work quickly while the entirety of the creature's cells were still alive which meant I had about five minutes to extract as much biomass as I could. I jumped on top of the head of the body and quickly sprinted to its legs, changing my left arm to something resembling a giant bone saw and skid to a stop on the leg and began to saw. The flesh was easily sliced however the bone simply wouldn't cut, after half a minute of trying to saw the bone I gave up. Instead I changed my bone saw back into my hammerfist and began condensing it into diamond like toughness again which seemed to be the only way to break the creature's bones. I changed my right arm to my blade and completed the condensing of my fist and brought it down on the giant's leg, however the flesh on the surface of the bone proved to be quite an effective rubbery shield. I stuck my blade into the previous incision and turned it sideways, parallel to the bone and sliced. The flesh came off easily and the bone beneath was barely revealed, but it was enough, the bone was silvery, almost metallic. I brought my hammerfist down again and smashed the bone into pieces; I followed with my blade, making a clean cut through the rest of the beast's leg. As soon as the leg was separate from the body I immediately absorbed it, however a single leg had taken me three minutes to cut through, there was no way I was going to be able to absorb this thing without absorbing it all at once. I couldn't wait anymore I wanted the biomass; I sprinted to about the center of the mass of flesh and launched a large amount of tendrils from my body attaching each to the body at various locations to allow them to break down and begin absorbing the body.

As predicted I began to feel my body slow down as it converted the biomass, I was only half way through the body however which was bad, this meant that I would be out for at least 10 to 20 minutes. At about 75% I began feel weak, "power through it and absorb the rest of the body otherwise fighting it would have been a waste" I kept telling myself, no sooner had I absorbed the last pound of flesh I dropped the ground and blacked out.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4- old enemies

I didn't have dreams; only an endless, starless night was waiting for me as I was locked in my own head while my body dealt with an overconsumption of biomass. After what seemed like an hour I grew board of waiting and imagined myself standing, I stood, I imagined what I had just killed only as large as myself, it appeared. I thought of an invisible floor and watched as the mutant melted into a puddle of clear liquid, the puddle began expanding and growing and soon I was walking on invisible terrain. I began running, I knew it wouldn't matter as I could get to wherever I wanted simply by thinking of the location but it still felt good to have no thought as to why I was running, I simply was. Suddenly I felt the ground disappear, I was floating again. Something was wrong though as I felt myself being pulled down into emptiness my body began to feel warm, suddenly my entire form burst into flames. I tried to morph into something, anything at all to stop the fire, nothing happened and I felt myself begin to spin. I spun faster and faster until…

My eyes slammed open, I was in a metal room, unclear thoughts swirling in my head. Before I could form a coherent thought my body began burning again, it actually hurt too, for the first time in my life I screamed. "Ah, good you're awake" a Russian voice "cut it" the burning stopped a moment later. I finally got a clear look at my surroundings, metal walls, a metal floor and a metal ceiling; a man stood in front of me smiling. Everything was in a yellow hue; I looked around again and realized I was in some sort of containment chamber, with a yellow glowing barrier between me and the outside. I morphed my arm into a claw immediately and slashed at the barrier, at least that's what should have happened; however my arm was still in human form. I attempted to morph my arm again this time looking at it directly; it changed into a black mass of biomass however immediately reverted back into human form. "Found out that you can't transform yet?" Finally getting a look at the person in front of me, he was tall maybe 6 foot 3 inches however I couldn't make anything else out as he was only a black silhouette with a yellow hue. "Who are you and what do you want?" I asked. "You know us, you've always known us. Though now we go by the Enclave instead of blackwatch." "Damn it really? Can't you people just die already?" I said trying to keep the anger and annoyance out of my voice "You nuked New York and then the world, what's the point of even continuing to exist?" "Didn't you hear? The destruction of the world was started by a virus, specifically an evolved form of the blacklight virus" the Russian continued "human stupidity was what actually destroyed the world, not us" "who are you then and what do you represent?" I asked "names aren't too important, let's just say that my name is Demichev, your name is Zeus, this place specifically is Raven Rock and we are what remains of Blackwatch and Gentek, however as I said before we go by the Enclave now. Have I satisfied your curiosity about meaningless titles and names now?" "Actually yes you have." I answered.

"Now let's get on with this, what is your name?" he asked "you just said names didn't matter" He nodded. The burning sensation was back I began screaming involuntarily, the burning stopped "The feeling of actual pain is alien to you correct? Now let's go back to my question, what is your name?" "You won't get anything from me, damn you" I yelled. He nodded again, the burning returned, this time though I gritted my teeth and remained silent "resisting hmm? Turn it up to 50" the burning nearly tripled, I growled at Demichev "I've been through worse" "oh yes, I know which is why the machine is only at a fourth of its maximum potential power; Turn it up to 75." The pain was intense I had no doubt that what they were using would have killed any normal human quite a while ago. After a few minutes of me barely keeping myself from giving Demichev any sign of me giving up to the pain he spoke again. "Cut it" the pain stopped, "well then it seems that you are incredibly adaptive after all, both in mind and body." He began walking away "you stay there; the doctor will be in shortly." The door slid open as he exited and slid closed again as he disappeared from view. I doubted highly that he meant a doctor that gave Band-Aids and lollipops which meant I had to get out of here, fast. I attempted morphing again which yielded the same result as last time I tried; I then tried punching the field however that got me the opposite reaction that I wanted, I was flung back against the back wall of the containment cell which meant the cell also had an inbuilt propulsion system which made it so I couldn't touch any surface of the cell except the floor; This device told me that these people were both extremely wealthy and they were prepared for me, not a good combination for me. I extended my hand slowly in front of me, my fingertips were thrown back to the back cell wall, and I realized that I was wrong; I could in fact touch the back of the containment cell, which meant the people holding me were not quite as smart as I had previously thought. I felt up along the back to the cell to the top of it, there was no repulsing field on the top of the cell; this was extremely good. I threw all of my power into my fist and threw it upwards, the lid of the cell popped off moderatly easily.

A voice came over the speaker system in the room, it was Demichev. "Well now, good job you figured out how to get out, however I wouldn't leave that cell unprotected, we have set up some plasma conductors in that room just in case you tried an escape. Also before you ask, yes, in your weakened state you can be killed, although it is much harder to kill you than a normal human but it's fairly easy with what we have in that building; I'd advise you to stay put." "Not a chance" I said as I jumped out of the cell. I landed on the ground and ran towards the door only 25 feet in front of me, "your choice, goodbye Zeus" demichev said. Reaching the door I began feeling sluggish as if either my body or my mind was moving slower than normal, I shrugged these thoughts off as I opened the door revealing an enormous but completely empty room. I looked around and stopped sprinting immediately as I nearly ran right off the edge of a pit spanning the entire room; I looked down into it and realized that it stretched down into a black abyss. I stepped back from the edge and looked for a way to cross as there was no way that I could leap over it in my current condition, there was also no telling how long this mind-body disconnection would last making everything I did slow, I hated it. The only thing I saw in the entire room was a door at the other end. The unseen speakers came alive again with Demichev's voice "We can't let you escape no matter what" his voice sounded unsure, I then finally connected what he had said about the power of the containment cell, the plasma conductors and that I was able to actually die, all of it was lies. I came to the realization that this Enclave was highly unprepared to actually deal with me and that up to this point they had been trying to talk me down from escaping without actually having anything to actually stop me except for this pit which led to who knows where.

"Trying to talk me down from escape huh? The old Blackwatch would have at least backed up their threats with actual force, not simple words" I said loudly. The speakers were silent for a minute and then came back on "The thing is, as I'm sure you know, that you can only die via self-absorption which puts us in a difficult position." This voice was different, another Russian, however it sounded more American than the first. "Then what are you gonna do about me then? You just said that I'm immortal." I challenged "No, not at all I simply said you'd have to be absorbed by yourself. So I'd like you to meet Ares 2.8.1a4o1 or simply Ares for short." I waited, staring at the opposite door after maybe 30 seconds there was still no sign of this Ares thing. "What are you waiting for, huh? Where's you're…" I was cut short as something pulled both of my legs out from under me; I slammed down on the floor hard, rending the metal to my body shape as I impacted. I jumped up and morphed my left arm into a claw and my right arm into my whipfist, I scanned the room behind me frantically as I puzzled how the only room behind me was the one I had come from and how… Something grabbed my claw arm and shoved it straight through my chest; I growled in annoyance at this presence, it was fast I gave it that much recognition. As I ripped the claw back out of my chest cavity and twisted around to try and catch a glimpse of whatever this thing was, by the time I had turned around however it had completely vanished.

I looked around frantically; there was quite literally nowhere that this thing could hide. The whole room was simply a flat cube with a pit in the center, the whole scenario instantly clarified in painful obviousness. Whatever this Ares thing was, it was within the pit; as I realized this just as a dark blue tendril flew towards me. I dodged to the right just as another tendril flew directly at where I had projected my landing, stabbing me directly in the chest and withdrawing back into the pit within a blink of an eye. I didn't know what this thing's plan was, simply stabbing me wouldn't work I would have thought these people would have taught it some way to wound me at least if this was creature had been designed to kill me. I decided that if he tried stabbing me again that I would try dodging to the left this time almost as soon as I thought about it another tendril shot directly at me, I dodged to the left as planned however I got stabbed through the chest even faster than last time; The tendril withdrew into the pit again.

I decided to try and sprint straight at the pit and look like I was going to jump across to throw off its trajectory and then immediately use its own tendrils as a jumping platform to boost me over to the other side. A tendril flew out at me, however instead impaled itself into the metal floor in front of me "That plan won't work" Said a voice in the pit which I could only assume was Ares "the pit is actually much longer than it appears, its actually about 500 feet across instead of about 200" Ares continued "why are you telling me this and how do you know what I'm thinking?" Is what I would have said, however Ares interrupted me before I even started talking "because there's no way to stop me and because that's why Gentek created me" That pretty much confirmed all of my suspicions about him that I had "yes, I can read your thoughts, yes I know all of your capabilities and, yes I am so much more than you." The Tendril sticking in the ground in front of me began moving slightly from side to side, I stepped aside as the tendril suddenly retracted and Ares flew clear over the side of the pit to land where the tendril had previously been. "So you're the great Alex Mercer hmm?" He said as he stared at me. I looked back at him, he was in a human form wearing a lab coat he had black eyes, brown hair, and tan skin. That was all I could see before he dashed at me and shoved me backward throwing me a good 50 feet before I slammed into a wall, I jumped back up only to be picked up and thrown back towards the other wall slamming me straight into it as well. Almost instantly as I had hit the ground Ares appeared and threw me straight up I hit the ceiling and began falling however a tendril stabbed into my chest and yanked me down, I landed head first onto the floor at about 120 mph.

It became apparent that the Enclave had drained most of my biomass somehow as everything moved much faster than normal "what? They… they what?" Ares said as if he was in complete disbelief he then began shouting to the walls "you bastards, you weakened him? We had a deal, but I guess that's what I should have expected right? You killed them didn't you, it's always been you." I staggered to my feet, as I did the door at the far end of the pit opened and large mechanical things resembling tanks floated in, I looked back to Ares who had changed his arm into my blade "what…" I began however Ares cut me off "no time to explain we need to get out of here, can you still run?" "I, I think so" I said "good then run along the walls just under the pit, and don't stop running until you're out of the compound" Ares said "Why are you helping me now?" "Because in the past Blackwatch and Gentek have done some… more questionable experiments that I've been a part of or have been done to me." "Sounds like them" I responded "plus" he began again "they killed my whole home town so I'm kinda pissed" "ah, yea they did that to New York too" "Is that your home town?" he asked, it was weird, kind of like I knew him from somewhere already. "Oh no, I would remember if we had met before, I hardly ever leave this room so I only really know lab techs and Blackwatch troops. You know what it's like out there right? Do you know of a place called Hope?" "Well, there are a few places and people I know that are named Hope, do you know where it was located?" I asked "I was told it was in a place called Idaho" I immediately blanked my mind; that name… "What happened to the whole 'no time to explain' thing?" I asked "ah yes, we should probably get going, those tanks wont fire on us until we move however they may be putting up some more barricades further down the road, you ready?" "Always" I remarked "Then run, now"

I bolted to the right side wall as Ares sprinted to the left. The tanks began opening fire with laser weapons, I had regained quite a bit of my speed in the few minutes I had been out of the cell but I still felt slow. The tank's targeting systems were much too slow to keep up with either Ares or myself as we dipped below the line of sight of the tanks and into the pit, thoughts kept trying to surface about Ares and Hope I had to push them back down into the depths of my mind, making sure that Ares wouldn't be able to read them; at least I hoped he couldn't. The pit actually felt longer than Ares had said however it was quite possibly the slowness I still felt in my mind, Ares managed to slow his speed to match mine to allow us a coordinated attack against the tanks "No" Ares shouted across the 100 foot width of the pit "we aren't attacking the tanks, they're highly resistant to biomass attacks; however they have so much armor that they can't move fast at all" "nobody tells me what to do" I yelled back "but thanks for the tip" I decided that he was obviously right and that we should run from them. As we neared the edge of the pit we jumped almost in unison to the ledge of the pit, using the foothold as an extra boost we jumped over the tanks with ease, landing directly on the other side of the blockade and dashing through the doorway to a hall that split in three different directions. "If you see someone consume them, I have no clue what kind of fight Blackwatch will put up with both of us on the loose. Now that said, we need to go right; these tunnels can be a labyrinth if you don't know where you're going." "Lead the way"

After 4 minutes of running, Ares calling out directions, and not so much as a mouse to consume the now familiar sound of Demichev's voice came over the intercom "Ares, please stop this madness or I'll be forced to…" "To what?" Ares yelled "To kill me? You tried that with Zeus and look how that turned out." "Not exactly" Demichev began "noticed how odd it is that the labs you're currently in are empty? We have a gas that can put your cells into a comatose state, basically locking you in time while we…" Ares began laughing "you stupidity is so amusing Demichev, remember that scientist that went missing about a month ago that you thought ran off? The only one who knew about the gas? Well let's just say that you and I are the only ones who know about the gas now, I also know that I could meld to Zeus' exterior in a sort of armor-like form while he runs out of here; and of course you know that once the cells stop contacting the compound the effects wear off immediately?" "Well I, um…" Demichev trailed off clearly trying to think of some way out of this "Damn it, fine, just get out of here and take Mercer with you." Ares shrugged "Most sensible thing I think you've ever said Demichev, oh and don't worry, once Zeus recovers his biomass there will only be one of us left" I froze, he was still going to kill me. "What's the point of letting me get back my power then? Why not just kill me now and be done with it?" I asked "Well, unlike you I've never actually fought anyone even remotely close to my skill level. My original plan was to escape and hunt you down but that obviously didn't happen; yes however I am still going to kill you eventually." "Fine let's get out of here then, lead the way." Ares grinned "good to see you'll at least put up a good fight. Now it's this way" Ares pointed to the left and we began running again.

6 minutes later we arrived at a large bulkhead door that was obviously tightly sealed. "Demichev, open the door or I'll smash it down." Ares called, a few seconds later Demichev responded "yes, yes fine" and with that the doors slid open revealing a cave with a metal grated floor "Escape tunnel" Ares said "I'll see you in about 2 weeks, don't die until then, however I don't think that will be much of a problem for you." "Fine, I guess we decide who's the deadliest then." I said "good" Ares responded with a grin sprinting towards the end of the cave. I jogged after him however I could sense that I was in critical biomass and that I needed something living to kill, fast. It was at least a 10 minute jog at 10 mph to get back out into the open world everything except me was speeding up now, not a good sign the only other warning that I'd get was my vision loosing color. I looked around frantically for something, anything to consume, 30 agonizing seconds later I found it; some kind of flying creature lazily floating along about 40 feet in front of me. I barreled towards it far faster than I would have if it hadn't been this dire of a need for biomass; grabbing it directly out of the air I ripped it clean in half and consumed it on nearly instantaneously. I quickly felt slightly better as my perception of time sped up to meet the speed of everything else around me, which meant I could go on a little hunting trip.

I soared through the air and darkness as I scanned the ground for any sign of life that I could add to my new reserve of biomass. After about 10 minutes of gliding and jumping I came across one of the mutant bear creatures that had attacked Dana, I almost smacked my forehead for forgetting about her. I made quick work of the creature by simply snapping its neck and absorbing it; I continued jumping and gliding to find my next prey, thankfully I found 4 large gecko-like creatures fairly fast. I approached one of the geckos which was met by hostile hissing. I dashed in and kicked it snapping its spine and launching it towards a rock face where its head imploded, the other three went similar to the first, I absorbed the gecko's bodies one at a time as I didn't want to waste any biomass with transformations or tendrils at this point as I continued hunting. I then came across yet another creature, somewhat resembling the geckos I had just encountered however this beast was at least three times their size and had much deadlier looking claws and teeth; I landed directly in front of it, seemingly stunning it for a second as it tried to figure out what I was or where I had come from. After quite literally 5 seconds of thought I think it decided that it didn't care about either as it charged me. I dashed to the left, I wanted to toy with this obviously brutish creature; it reoriented itself surprisingly quickly as it turned to charge again, as it did I dashed back to the right and punched its back with enough force to rend a steel support beam out of shape. Sure enough the creature's spine snapped. I approached the now helpless creature deciding that it would have been a worthy opponent for any mortal being I brought my foot down on its neck, severing its brain's connection to the rest of its body which I absorbed.

The hours that followed time blurred as I let the instinct of hunting to take over my mind as I mercilessly killed creatures of all sorts absorbing them and gaining back the biomass that I had lost because of Blackwatch and Gentek, it was like seeing myself in a third person standpoint unable to interfere. When I finally came back to my own senses I was holding a bloody torn up corpse, I couldn't decide whether it was an animal or if it was human, however I was somewhat sure that I didn't attack any human settlements I could at least control myself a little. I ran a self- diagnosis and found that my biomass was about 3/4ths of what I had before I was captured by Gentek and I figured that was good enough. I realized that I had absolutely no clue where I was or what direction Rivet City was in, so I began running, straight forward at about 40 miles per hour figuring that just about any human would know the direction I should go. I ran for about half an hour before finally coming across a circle of tents all grouped around a central fire pit, the fire itself was almost out which made sense as the sun was barely peaking over the hills to the east; that probably meant that they were nomads, walking in the day, camping at night.

I approached a man half-asleep in a chair with a shotgun in his lap and simply saying "hey." The man opened one eye and responded with "yea?" "Do you know what direction Rivet City is in?" I asked, he pointed to the rising sun "we're actually headed that way if you want to join us, should take just about 10 more days of walking" "10 days? Where are we?" I asked "You my friend are in what used to be called Missouri, now it's just another piece of this dying world" "thank you." I said. Turning to leave I looked back at the stranger who said "you sure you don't want to stick with us? The passage is sure to be filled with mutants and other unfriendly creatures." "I think I'll be ok" I said continuing to walk away from the camp. The sprint back was for the most part uneventful, however at 400 miles per hour you don't see much of anything at all aside from blurs of color which is why, when I smacked face first into a cliff face I was only mildly irritated with myself. I proceeded to change my skin to become as hard as titanium and readied my sprint again, this time I slammed into the cliff at only 150 mph however it was enough as I ripped through the rock and tore out the other side, quickly regaining the 400 mph speed that I had previously.


End file.
